Inter-system and intra-system communications are known. Communications between wireline and wireless networks proceed regularly and transparently to the user.
It is well known that subscribers of paging systems must wear their pagers at all times when they are expecting others to contact them. The subscriber may be on the run, and forget his or her pager. When the subscriber is not on the run, he or she may advise expected callers to call the user's wireline telephone. When a user fails to answer a page, for example when the user takes off the pager to charge it, loses the pager, or forgets to turn the pager on, the page may be forwarded to the user's television, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,489,894 titled "Television Paging System," or some other device such as a cellular phone associated with the user. Some systems allow for a page to be forwarded into another communication system or even into another type of device, such as a cellular phone.
In cellular phone systems or wireline phone systems, call forwarding, call waiting, and voice mail are just a few of the options that a user has when the user does not answer an incoming call for any reason. Users of cellular phones may also make use of another diversion feature, commonly known as "no answer transfer," to divert an incoming call to a second predetermined phone number should the intended recipient fail to answer their cellular phone. The second phone number may be a voice mail server or another phone device where the original call recipient may be contacted.
Thus, when the recipient of a call or page does not answer the call or page, many options exist for the recipient to redirect a call or otherwise use another service such that the recipient is made aware of the call. Generally these options are referred to as diversion or notification.
The initiator of the failed call, however, has very few options. Some voice mail systems allow the caller to forward the call to another number, where someone may or may not answer the call, and that someone may or may not be able to help the initiator get the information sought.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method of providing information to the initiator of a call when the intended recipient does not answer the call.